According to the Associated Press, the residents of Tbilisi, Georgia celebrated hometown hero, Josef Stalin’s birthday yesterday. Their celebration included drinking, dancing, and a 6-foot cardboard cutout of the former Soviet tyrant-extraordinaire. People cried and kissed the cutout while laying wreaths and flowers at its base.
“People remember how everything used to be”, one participant rightly told reporters, “there was work.” He made no mention of the purges, the tens of millions dead, or the gulags. Nor did he mention the long-term psychological devastation that Stalin and his policies wrought on the Russian people. But yes, I guess there was always work…
It's enough to make you cry.
Posted by: Matt McIntosh | December 22, 2004 at 08:48 PM